[76] The singular idea of placing the seat of madness in the viscera of the abdomen, arose at a period when a certain number of mystical ideas formed the basis of all physiology. The four sorts of humours performed in the human body (_microcosm_) a part as important as the four elements did in the whole universe (_macrocosm_). The bile, the blood, the pituitary and atrabiliary fluids determined, by their predominance the different temperaments, and produced the different diseases. The atrabiliary humour was, as is well known, thought to be the cause of melancholy and mania; now this humour was said to be secreted by the supra-renal capsules, and the position of these organs no doubt gave the name of hypochondria, which is given to a certain degree of mental alienation. After a great number of ages, the mysterious properties of numbers are almost entirely out of favour. We still speak of the four temperaments, but attach no importance to the four ages of man or to the four parts of the day. We recognize in the human body more than four kinds of fluids, but among them all we do not find the atrabiliary fluid. The cause of madness then cannot be attributed to this humour, and yet we dare not drive this disease from the seat it has so long held. In order to find reasons for keeping it there, they seek in the viscera for disorders which are not often found there even in the most striking cases, and which most often still exist without the least alteration in the intellectual functions. [77] We should be often exposed to commit great mistakes, if we always judged by this rule. The sensation is a very uncertain means of determining the organ that is primarily affected; this can be proved by numerous examples, we shall cite one only which relates to the brain. Nausea and vomiting are often, as is well known, among the first symptoms of cerebral affections; should we from this believe that the seat of the disease is in the stomach? Undoubtedly not: now, in syncope produced by a strong affection of the mind, there is no reason to suppose that the heart is affected before the brain, since the intellectual phenomena have necessarily preceded the sensation of joy or of sorrow which has produced the syncope. But to say that the brain was primarily affected, is not saying that its action ceased before that of the heart; and every thing, on the contrary, leads to the belief that the loss of the senses is a consequence of the suspension of the circulation.